New ask Hacker News story: ASK HN: What is edge-computing and how to think of it beyond the fundaments?

ASK HN: What is edge-computing and how to think of it beyond the fundaments?
2 by lucid-quiet | 1 comments on Hacker News.
I've noticed more and more startups talk about the edge. Or edge-computing. I'll be honest: I struggle with edge a lot. I find it hard to see what the concept solves. Maybe it's a bit like someone describing distributed computing to 1960s programmers. I get the fundamentals sure: latency, cross-region, cost control (scaling in when demand recedes), etc. Those are things everyone can get with any of the cloud providers already. So, what slice of an app makes sense to run on some edge when the core runs in data-center? And what characteristics do most of those slices have? Is the bulk of the edge workload stateless and ephemeral? Is it mostly to improve shopping experiences? Is it just so new no one knows?

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